EVENTS

Yacht-Owning Moocher-Class Parasites Of Newport Beach

Yacht-owning looters of Newport Beach, California, are in an uproar over the city’s plan to raise the dock fees–currently $100 per year–on their opulent yachts to $1500 per year in an attempt to get these moocher parasites to stop sucking off the goverment teat provided by the taxes paid by the hard-working producer class citizens of the seaside city, and make them actually pay for the lavish services they receive. The City of Newport Beach is just doing the conservative thing and running their city like a business, where customers pay for the goods and services they receive.

I am sure these lazy greedy welfare moocher millionaires voted for Obama in the presidential election, just like all the other lazy greedy welfare moochers who just sit around waiting for government handouts instead of working hard and paying for their own stuff.

Not all yacht owners are wealthy. Here in Florida a good number are live-aboard retired couples living on SS and a small nest egg left over from selling their only home. Their boat is their home and they live frugal lives on their sailboat or motor cruiser.

I know one such couple that has spent the last ten years as teachers working weekends and summers to get a classic old sailboat, a bit north of 30′, set up as a retirement cruiser. They cruise down into the Caribbean in winter and up the east coast in summer. They live on a shoestring. They grow bean sprouts, catch fish and bake their own bread. Down south she makes extra money teaching english and as a seamstress and sail maker. He welds, works on electrical systems on boats, and has learned to be a good diesel mechanic.

You are couching this as a move to get the rich to paid their fair share. Live aboard cruisers see it as a move to get the working class people and less expensive boats out of the way so the million dollar yachts, and the wealthy people, people you can can base a high end shopping district and overpriced restaurants around, will show up.

Lots of working class people have boats but the trend is for docks and marinas to try to ‘gentrify’. To make the seashore and docks accessible to people who can afford to go big. I’ve been told that, along with corporate jets, a yacht can be maintained as an executive perk and can be written off as a place to entertain clients. For the an extra $1400 is beans.

Municipal marinas are often the last inexpensive places to dock a boat. When they raise prices the middle class will be effectively excluded from the waterways. Which is exactly what the wealthy want, exclusivity.

This isn’t a municipal marina. It’s people’s private docks which they have built on public waterways. Why shouldn’t they pay for that privilege? Either as a separate fee or by having their real-estate valuation go up by the value of their docks. One of the private docks in question can accommodate as many as 12 boats FFS!

And this is Newport Beach – the second priciest real-estate in California. You ain’t gettin’ too many retired school-teacher penny-pinchers living aboard there. And they already have the high-end shopping and fancy restaurants.